The Revolution will be Televised (in excruciating detail)

Who would have thought that George Galloway entering the Celebrity Big Brother house would lead to a reappraisal of that lowbrow cultural pastime, television? Not since the broadcast of Kenneth Clarke's Civilisation have so many bien-pensants been rushing to reverse their opinion of this previously ridiculed cloaca of hyper-capitalism and objectification. The audacity of Galloway attempting to reach the lower orders through this hyper-modern medium of SOUND and VISION is seen as a stunning coup by his followers:

"This is a gamble for Respect and George Galloway, but the potential benefits in terms of getting Respect's politics out to millions of people who are still not sure about us should not be underestimated..."

Over at Medialens (a sort of SWP TV watchdog - a kind of Citizen Smith meets Mary Whitehouse(*):



...excitement is fever-pitch. Toast has been made, a nice pot of tea is brewing, and people are seated in front of E4, notepads in hand. One masochist writes:

"I'm watching/recording full Big Brother coverage of George Galloway for personal research purposes. I've trawled thru 16 hours of coverage of every single Galloway interaction covered by C4, E4 live, More4 news, and BB's Big Mouth."

16 hours! Sweet Jeebus with a remote control! Surely comrades, this is above and beyond the call of duty. I think he deserves a medal - therefore, as a tribute to George, who of course regarded the disappearance of the Soviet Union as "the biggest catastrophe of [his] life", I have struck the Hero of TV Monitoring Endurance Medal:



Wear it with pride!

(*) For an example of the "bias" they complain out, check out this page at normblog, where they condemn an episode of Newsnight as "pro-government propoganda" even when the editor replies that with an "audience contain[ing] a majority who were strongly against the war" was "balanced".

Technorati tags: George Galloway, Celebrity Big Brother, even Pete Burns is starting to look good.